Couplers

1963 CavityElliptic Cho: and Konrad for TWT’s 85

The double pump-wave interaction described here may
have useful application as a harmonicgenerator. One
possible way of setting up the appropriate pump waves
would be to make the two pump frequencies equal and
make use of twospaceharmonics of the samepump
circuit mode, as shown in Fig. 3. It is also possible to
make one of the pump frequencies zero, so that one of
the pump waves would consist of de fields.
IV. SUMMARY
We have developed here a technique of analyzing the
behavior of parametrically coupled beamwaves which
permits us to obtainsolutions in a particularly simple and
concise form.Thesesolutions taketheform of system
transfer functions which characterize the behavior of the
beam waves for arbitrary initial conditions; waves at the
idle frequency andotherparametricsidebandsarise
naturally in these solutions. This technique hasbeen used
toobtainthe solution for double-pumped parametric
interaction in which an infinite number of frequencies is
coupled.
V. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author wishes to acknowledge the valuable criti-
cism and advice given by M. c. Pease during the course
of this study.

Elliptic Cavity Couplers for Traveling-Wave Tubes*

Summary-The elliptic cavity coupler is described as a broadbandwidth for most cavities is rather limited because they are
low-loss coupler for microwave slow-wave structures. This type oftuned circuits with a relatively high Q.
coupler is particularly useful in helix-type traveling-wave tubes, but
can be adapted for other slow-wave structures as well. Usable
A transducer to meet low-loss and wide bandwidth
bandwidths as wide as 3 to 1 and broad-band insertion losses of requirements was suggested some time ago by Professor
less than 1 db have been observed. This type of coupler could G. Hokfor use as a coupler in conjunctionwith an
readily be utilized with slow-wave structures in the millimeter electronically tunable magnetronoscillator. The cavityis a
wavelength region. right elliptic cylinder with the oscillator tube placed at
one focus of the ellipse, while at the other focus is posi-
INTRODUCTION tioned a coupling antenna which is connected to the load.
HERE ARE several types of transducers available Thus all the energy launched in the elliptic cavity a t one
to the electron tube engineer for coupling an RF focus istransferred totheother focus. This coupling
signal from a coaxial transmission line or a wave- scheme worked quite successfully and in fact the oscillator
guide to theslow-wave structure of a traveling-wave tube. power output was nearly constant over almost an octave
To name just a few, there are various types of cavity of bandwidth a t X band.
couplers, waveguide transducers, coupled-helix couplers, Recently Professor J. Rowe suggested the use of an
and direct pin connections which can be used in the case elliptic cavity as a transducer from either a coaxial line
of wire helices. The choice of a coupler depends frequently or waveguide to a helical R F structure.Anumber of
on the bandwidth and power level of the device being transducers in the X-band and X-band frequency regions
designed. Thus,with a helix-type traveling-wave tube, were constructed. The results obtained from this investi-
coupled-helix couplers are quite often used due to their gation are described below. Due to the natureof this type
inherently wide bandwidth of coupling. Sometimes the of cavity the theory of operation is quite straightforward,
loss characteristics of atransducerare of paramount whereas theactual construction and refinements are
importance as in the case of a low-noise amplifier. Cavity largely empirical in nature.
couplers which can be silver plated are often used with
THEORY AND DESIGN
low-noise tubesbutunfortunately,theoperating band-
Consider arightcylindricalcavitywith an elliptic
* Received September 17, 1962; revised manuscript received cross section as shown in Fig. 1, where a and b are the
November 8, 1962. This work was supportedbytheRome Air semimajor and semiminor axes, respectively. An analogy
Development Center under Contract No. AF30(602)-2303. may be madehere to geometricaloptics. Duetothe
?,Electron Physics Laboratory, Department of Electrlcal Engi-
neermg, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. nature of an ellipse a wave originating at focal point F ,

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 86 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES March
will be reflected at thewall a t point A such that it strikes
focal point Fz. The sameholds trueforpath F’BF,.
Indeed, it can be shown that for an ellipse
- _ _
F,A + A F , = F,B + = 2a. (1)
This optical consideration holds exactly.for waves of all
frequencies which have their propagation vectors normal
to the elliptic surface (TEM modes). If anantenna is
placed at one focus and a nonreflecting load at the other,
there are no spurious reflections and broad-band operation Fig. 1-Cross section of an elliptic cavity.
is obtained.
I n order to simplify the description, assume that the
elliptic cavity can be represented by a radial waveguide
with its origin a t F1. The dominant E-type mode in such
a waveguidecanbeshown to beatransverse electro-
magnetic mode.’ The nonvanishing electric and magnetic
field components of this T E M modeare, respectively,

and
r I
i
i
h

Fig. 2 indicates the geometry and the coordinates of a

radial waveguide, the characteristic impedance of which
is seen to be

where h is the spacing between the two plates and Fig. 2-Diagram of a radial waveguide.
1-

the intrinsicimpedance of free space. Eq. (4) indicates

that at the focus of the ellipse the impedance is extremely
high. To couple intosuch a cavity an antenna with a
gradual transition in impedance away from the focus is
desirable. The conical antenna doesindeed possess this
property.
A theoreticaltreatment of thistype of antennahas
beengivenpreviously by AdaehL2 A semi-infinite cone
excited at its tip by a thin,linearquarter-wavelength
antenna as shown in Fig. 3 has been considered. Adachi
shows that for CY < 50” the radiation resistance increases
almost linearly with CY.The best transition from the coaxial Fig. 3-A perspective drawing of a conical antenna used t o excite
input line to the final cone angle CY was determined experi- the elliptic cavity.
mentally to a large degree. It was found that a smooth
transition yields best results. r4--i
In the experiments reported here a slow-wave structure
is situated at the otherfocus Fz. The last turnof the helix HELIX, TYPE N-CONNECTOR,
is extended into a straight wire antenna terminated by a

1 N. Marcuvitz,“WaveguideHandbook,” M. I. T . Rad. Lab.

Ser., McGraw-Hill Book Co Inc., New York, N. Y., vol. 10; 1951.
2 S. Adachi, “A theoret/ical analysls of semi-infinite conlcal
antennas,” I R E TRANS. ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, vol.
AP-8, pp. 534-547; November, 1960.

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1963 Ronrad
and
cylinder approximately a quarter wavelength long near
the middle of the operating frequency band. The optimum
length of this antenna is obtained experimentallyfora
given helix andcavity configuration. A cross section
through a n ellipticcavity showing the conical antenna
and the helix termination is shown in Fig. 4. Since the
transition at the helix must serve as a gradual change
from the TEMmode in the cavity to a coaxial mode and
then to a helical mode in a very short distance, it is felt
that this area is the mostcritical one in the design of
the transducer. Experimental evidence indicates that the
most severe limitation in achieving a wide bandwidth is
this transition.
As far as the bandwidth of the elliptic cavity itself is
concerned, thereare two factors which mustbe con-
sidered. The first one is the low-frequency cutoff for the
cavity. As long as the shortest distance between the focal
point and the cavity wall is greater than a quarter wave-
length, the reflections from the different points along the
wall should be such that there is little distortion in the
reflected waves. On tjhe other hand, it is not desirable to
make the cavity too large as this would increase the sur-
face area of the walls. Since the currents flowing in the
side wall are high, considerable att'enuation in the signal
would result. I n practice it has been found best to design
the low-frequency cutoff of thecavityforthe lowest
operating frequency of interest. I n order to keep the side-
wall area as low as possible, so that the losses are low, the
eccentricity of the elliptic cavity, given by
should be reasonabIy low. Inthe limit, asthe ellipse
approaches a circle, the eccentricity goes to zero and the
two foci merge into the center of the circle. Of course,
the eccentricity must be kept sficiently greater than
zero so that there is enough space inside the cavity for
placement of the conical antenna and the helix.
I n summary the following points must be considered
in the design of an elliptic cavity coupler. It is assumed
here that the dimensions of the helix have been specified
previously. First a lower cutoff frequencyis chosen for
the cavity, such that the shortest distance between the
focus of the ellipse and the cavitywall is approximately a
quarter wavelength long for the lowest operatingfre-
quency. The size and hence the circumference of the
ellipse is keptas low as possible, thus fixing the ec-
centricity of the ellipse between 0.3 and 0.5 in most
cases.
The height of the cavity and the cone angle are de-
termined by the impedance and physical size of the slow-
wave structure. Eq. (4) is useful in making an estimate
of the impedance. The transition from t.he coaxial input
line to the conical antenna must be made as smoothly
and gradually as possible. Subsequent adjustments of the
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Cho: Elliptic Couplers
Cavity for TWT's 87
conical antenna may be necessary to optimize the over-all
performance. The length of the antenna at theend of the
helix and the position of the antenna in the cavity are
determinedexperimentally. Theterminating cylinderis
made one-quarter of a wavelength long at the midband
operating frequency.
EXPERIMENTAL
RESULTS
Using the design procedure described above, cavities
with a bandwidth of 3 to 1 in X band were built. For such
abroadfrequencyrangea coaxial input connector has
to be used. A cavitywitha coaxial input connector
(type N) was also constructedfor the X-band region
but the upperlimit of the frequencyrangeis approxi-
mately 12 Gc dueto reflections from the connector.
AnotherX-bandcavity,with a waveguide inputmade
fromstandard R G 52/U waveguide, yielded quite low
values of VSWR and insertion loss. A photograph of the
X-band coupler is shown in Fig. 5. The cavity consists
of three flat plates. The top and bottom plates are made
out of solid brass, whereas the elliptic cylinder is machined
into the center plate. I n Table I are listed the critical
dimensions for the various cavities constructed.
Fig. 6 indicates the VSWR as a function of frequency
for the two X-band cavities. It can be seen that thesmaller
of the two cavit)iescuts off around 2.3 Gc, while the larger
one has a cutoff frequency of approximately 1.9 Gc. The
insertion loss as a function of frequencyfor the larger
cavity is also shown in Fig. 6. All the X-band cavities
were machined in the usual way, but were not polished.
The individual brass pieces are held together by means
of several screws. It was found that the tightness with
which the different pieces are clamped together is quite
critical as far as the loss is concerned, which indicates
that the RF loss due to wall currents is quite high where-
ever there isadiscontinuity inthe walls. The curves
in Fig. 6 appear to be somewhat irregular. This situation
canbeimproved by minor adjustmentsinthe helix
transition (e.g., antenna length andposition in the cavity).
Also the transition from the coaxial line to the conical
antenna was found to play a major role in the smoothness
of the VSWR curve.
The X-band cavity with the coaxial input was scaled
directlyfromcavity No. I1 (see Table I). The low-
frequency cutoff for this cavity is at about 7.8 Gc. The
VXWR is reasonably low up to at least 12.4 Gc. The type-
N connector used is the limitingfactorfor the upper
frequencies in this case. I n order to get around thislimita-
tion, a direct transition from R G 52/U waveguide to the
cavity was designed. The conical antenna of the cavity
is made sufficiently long SO that it extends as a post into
the waveguide. The geometry of this post is the same as
that for an ordinary waveguide-to-coaxial-line adapter
for RG 52/U waveguide. I n Fig. 7 a comparison is made
between the VSWR curves for the two types of input.
The loss fortheX-band cavities is shown in Fig. 8.
 88 13EE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEI7ICL:'S March

Fig. 5-S-band elliptic cavity coupler with a type-N inputconnector.

TABLE I
OF ELWPTIC
DIMENSIGNS CAVITYCOUPLERS

Frequency
Cavity
Number 1 Band 1 1 I Type of
Ciz!z&r
Cavity
Height
(in)
Semimajor Semiminor
Axis
(in)
Axis
(in)
1 1 1 1
Eccen-
tricity
Cone
Azle
Cone Base
%y. OD of Helix
Envelope
(in)
I
I1
S band
S band
Coaxial
Coaxial
0.250
0.250
2.00
2.37
1.73 j 0.502 28"
27'
0.274
1 1.00
1.20
1 0.274
111
IV
I
X band
X band
I
Coaxial
Waveguide
I
0.120
0.120
I
0.587 0.3880.550
0.587 0.3880.550
26"

26" 1 ::::1 0.134

0.134

CAVITY m
ICOAXIAL INPUT1

C4"ITY m
7

Fig. 6-VSWR and insertion loss for twoS-bandelliptic cavity

couplers with a coaxial input connector.
8

CAVITY tw m ~WAXIAL INPUT)

Fig. %Individual parts of an X-band elliptic cavity coupler with

waveguide input.

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 1963 Bates and Xcott: Circuit
Tapering
and
The insertion loss for the silver-plated cavity,is seen to be
about 1 db throughout the frequencyban$ of interest.
I n Fig. 9 may be seen a photograph of the various com-
ponent parts of the X-band coupler.
As was mentioned above, the cavity loss depends to a
great extent on how tightly the three plates comprising
the cavity are held together. I n order to reduce the 1-db
loss figure cited above, it is possible to machine the cavity
out of two parts instead of three. This would eliminate
one discontinuity around the circumference of the ellipse
and hence would decrease the RF loss. An improvement
inthe silver-plating technique should also yield a de-
crease in the loss.
Eficiency Bandwidth of Dispersive TWT’s 89
It should be observed that an elliptic cavity coupler,
because of its inherentbroad-bandproperty, could be
used as a transducer in any frequency region, insofar as
the physicalconstruction of the cavityis feasible. Al-
though the present work shows experimental results only
in S band andX band, calculations havebeen made which
indicate that the same techniques could be used in de-
signing couplers for helices well into the millimeter wave-
length region.
An S-band cavity has been successfully adapted as a
coupler for use with a ring-and-bar structure. This indi-
cates that the usefulness of this type of coupler is not
limited to wire helices only.

The Effect of Circuit ‘Tapering on the Efficiency

Bandwidth Characteristics of
Dispersive Traveling-Wave Tubes*

results
using large-signal
traveling-wave tube
equationsand efficiency also varies with frequency.The calculated varia-
experimental confirmation of the calculations are described. tion of efficiency with frequency for a typical medium-
bandwidth high-power traveling-wave amplifier designed
I . INTRODUCTION around the loaded-waveguide type of interaction structure
HE LOADED-WAVEGUIDEor coupled-cavity is shown in Fig. 1, CurveA. Shown for comparison in
type of interactionstructurehasmade possible Curve B is the efficiency that could have been obtained
traveling-wave amplifiers withpeak power capa- if the optimumvelocityrelationship were maintained
bilities uptothemegawatt range and average power over the entire frequency band by adjustsingthe electron
capabilities of many kilowatts[1]-[3]. Unfortunately, these velocity, Le., by “voltage tuning.” It can be seen that at
loaded-waveguide structuresare considerablymore dis- the low-frequency end of the band, the efficiency is re-
persive than the helix type commonly used in low-power duced by more than one half over that which would
traveling-wave tubes; i.e., the phase velocity of the loaded- result if the correct velocity synchronismwere maintained.
waveguide structurevariesas afunction of frequency. Fortunately, the variation of efficiency with frequency
The traveling-wave tubeinteraction process requires can be reduced to a large extent by period tapering in the
that theelectron beam velocityhave a particular relation- output section of the traveling-wave tube. Period tapering
ship to the velocity of the microwave signal propagating produces the maximum efficiency a t each frequency with-
out recourse to “voltagetuning.”This facthas been
* Received September 17, 1962; revised manuscript received experimentally verified by many independent observers
November 20, [41-[81.
t Physical
Electronics
Laboratories, East
Palo Alto, Calif. this paper, the physical process which the
Formerlywiththe Microwave Tube Division, HughesAircraft
Company, Los Angeles, Calif. observed efficiency improvement
is described. Computer
1MicrowaveDeviceDivision, Sylvania ElectricProducts, solutions of the large-signal traveling-wave tubeequations
Mountain View, Calif. Formerly with Hughes Aircraft Company,
Los Angeles, Calif. and experimental measurements of high-power traveling-

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